Network processors are generally used for analyzing and processing data packets for routing and switching packets in a variety of applications, such as network surveillance, video transmission, protocol conversion, voice processing, and internet traffic routing. A network processor in a switching network may provide transport of received data packets from an input port to one (unicast) or more (multicast) output ports of the network. Some network switches provide multicasting by replicating packets at the output port(s) corresponding to the received packet. Multicast packets may be replicated as many times as the number of output ports to which the multicast packet is transmitted.